New boss Richard Lariviere seeks 'balance' for Field Museum

If Richard Lariviere imagines enacting radical change when he takes over as Field Museum president this summer, he's doing a pretty good job disguising it.

In his first public comments since being named to the post two months ago, the former University of Oregon president stressed Tuesday that his role will be to "balance" the lakefront institution's many missions.

"It's a mixture between education and entertainment and research and discovery that's so rich, so unusual," he said. "There are enormous challenges in trying to get mind share in this environment, but the Field is at the cutting edge of trying to adapt. That's one of the things that was so attractive to me."

Lariviere, 62, spent Tuesday in Chicago making the media rounds, including a stop at the Tribune's editorial board, where he was flanked by John Rowe, the Field board chairman, and John McCarter, who'll retire in September after leading the museum since 1996. Lariviere officially begins work Aug. 1.

A Sanskrit scholar who held high-level administrative roles at the Universities of Texas and Kansas, the Chicago native was fired from the Oregon post late last year after colliding with the board that oversees the state's public universities.

He said the clash occurred because he had devised a funding plan that would have freed the university, "a cash cow for several institutions that weren't economically viable," of state subsidies. "But the state board was pretty nervous about this plan because it would have meant they had to give up control of the governance of the university and turn it over to a separate board," he said.

Lariviere said he has spent a recent sabbatical from Oregon, where he stayed on as a professor, meeting with people from the museum world in New York City. One of the things his soon-to-be peers told him, he said, is that they envy the Field's "sophisticated" pricing structure, which can range from $15 to $29 for an adult ticket.

So museum patrons probably shouldn't expect price cuts. But to the extent that he discussed any sort of personal mandate, it sounds as though Lariviere will strive to boost attendance, which has remained more or less static, except for spikes caused by blockbuster traveling exhibitions.

"The typical pattern in my life was, you went when you were 9," said Lariviere, born in Chicago's Ravenswood Hospital and raised in Iowa. "And you went again when you had a 9-year-old, and then again when you had a 9-year-old grandchild. I think we can change that."

One way to bring that baseline up, he said, is tourism.

"I'm hoping that Chicago is successful in simply attracting more tourists," he said.

Another is to better make the case for the Field: "We can't just sit back and say, 'Well, you have three choices: You can go to the beach, you can go to the museum or you can go to the Cubs game.' Those choices are now no longer three. You've got probably 50 choices. We have to play in that arena. We have to work to enhance the attendance."

A big positive? "We've got the object. You can see pictures of Sue (the museum's famous T. rex skeleton) all day long, and it is not the same as standing in the face of that spectacular exhibit," he said.

He said it would be easy to solve financial problems by chopping one department, one role or another, but that would change the institution dramatically.

"The challenge is not 'Can you solve a problem?'" he said, "but, 'Can you take the inherent value of an institution and continue to fulfill the mission that that value is designed to fulfill?' At the Field, it's research, it's education and it's entertainment."